Fire
by chostwriter
Summary: When a fire rages, it burns all in its path. Callie and Arizona confront the aftermath of Arizona's adultery. Post 9x24
1. Chapter 1

==ARIZONA==

She felt light.

She felt light, as if the largest weight she had not known she was even carrying was suddenly lifted off her body. It was easier to breathe. The panic she had felt in her heart had given way to catharsis, and with a deep breath, she felt her lungs fill with air as if for the first time.

She felt light. As if she were a bow string, pulled back to its maximum tension from months of buildup and resentment, she finally unleashed the arrow. No longer armed with a weapon, she felt light.

_Stick out your leg and I will go grab a bone saw and let's even the score!_

It was like an out of body experience, as she simultaneously shot these words of hate and felt the horror of their meaning. What do you do when your feelings defy all logic? Callie amputated her leg to save her life. She knows this. Callie stuck by her side and supported her, even in her darkest moments after the plane crash. She knows this. Callie was the light of her life, who had brought her more love and happiness than she had ever known before. She knows this.

_I thought, I thought we were past the hard stuff. I thought we were finally good!_

_We were, we are…_

And yet, from the core of her being, she could not suppress the feelings of pure anger and hatred. The raging fire within her could not be dampened by logic, fueled as it was by the incendiary stuff of betrayal, jealousy, insecurity, and sadness. When fires rage, they burn all in their path.

_YOU DIDN'T LOSE ANYTHING!_

_Apparently, I lost you._

Those four words had hit her like a sledgehammer, as she finally recognized the blow she had just dealt her wife.

She didn't hate Callie. She just needed a reason—finally, a real reason—to hate herself. She hated being disabled. She hated her crutch. She hated the constant pain. She hated the nightmares. She hated her body, how...asymmetrical it was now. She hated how she couldn't hop, or skip, or dance. She hated all the pitiful stares. She hated feeling like a shadow of her former self.

The truth is that she hated her life now, and no small part of her wished that she too had died on that plane. Yet, how could she justifiably admit that she hated her new self? When Mark and Lexi lost their lives? When she still had a loving wife and daughter? When she was still head of pediatric surgery, and respected throughout the hospital? When people still admired her, looked up to her, relied on her, loved her?

Well now, she had a real reason—a universally acceptable reason—for hating herself. Knowingly, she betrayed her wife, her daughter, her family, and the greatest love she had ever known. She had finally sunken to her lowest low, becoming the manifestation of everything she deplored. Cheater. Liar. Adulterer. Abandoner. Selfish. Irreverent. Irrational. Stupid. Crippled. Ugly.

She had just destroyed everything. The plane crash destroyed her leg, but she destroyed everything else.

_I can't lose you. So please…don't run._

A memory from a seemingly distant time, with a plea that Callie acceded to all too easily. If she could go back, she probably would have told Callie to run, to get away before the inferno swallowed her.

Arizona felt light, like the ashes that rise with the residual heat of the earth after a fire. She could continue to survey the destruction, or she could just float away. She could just float away. She looked at the bottle of pills clutched in her hand. Being a doctor still has its perks. She opened the lid and took two more pills. She felt light, and slumped further down on floor of the hospital bathroom.


	2. Chapter 2

==CALLIE==

"She's where?" Callie asked Alex Karev, who stood in a harried state at her door. He seemed awkward and stressed. Callie wondered if he knew.

"She's in my car. I brought her here so she could sleep it off. I figured…"

He must've found out. He'd just told her that Lauren Boswell found Arizona collapsed on the bathroom floor at the hospital, and had called him to help get Arizona out of there. He was always around the two of them. He must've known. Damnit Karev.

"Callie, she had morphine pills in her hand when we found her…"

"They're for her leg. Did you check her vitals?"

"Yeah, she's fine. Thank god. No signs of severe overdose, but she took enough to collapse on the floor..." Alex looked at Callie, whose expression remained impassive. "She was definitely in a lot of pain, Callie, be it physical or emo—"

"Did _you_ check her vitals, Karev?"

Alex was visibly taken aback by the question. Callie's words were as icy as her heart felt. She was still so angry about what had transpired, and there was a real possibility that, once again, that woman laid her hands on Arizona. The thought of it all made her feel sick. She placed her hand on the doorway to brace herself for Karev's response.

Alex swallowed. "Dr. Boswell did," he said furtively.

She looked away and let out a deep sigh, as the tears she thought she no longer had left for Arizona began to well up in her eyes. Hearing the other woman's name out loud sent the same pangs in her heart that Arizona's admission of guilt had earlier in the night. Did Lauren Boswell feel guilty? Did her _wife_ feel guilty? It seemed like she just wanted to punish her, but Callie was still at a loss as to what she did wrong.

She just wanted to fix things. As an orthopedic surgeon, she fixed bones and limbs. She was the best at it, top of her field. As a mother to Sofia, she fixed her hair and her food and her clothes and her play. Fixing things was what she did best. As a wife, she tried to fix things and rebuild Arizona's life from the ashes of that plane crash. But she couldn't do it. Ashes can never be remade into their original form. And now, everything she had worked for in their relationship seemed to be crumbling around her, and there was nothing she could do about it. She had already done all she could.

Callie blinked her tears away, and tried to clear her throat as she turned back to face the young doctor. "Did she tell you?"

Alex's mouth opened and then closed as he struggled to find the right words to explain. "I…I…I just found out…"

Callie gasped and finally collapsed into Alex's arms as tears began to flood uncontrollably down her face. Her body convulsed as she sobbed loudly, emotions unchained, overcome with sadness at the apparent futility of her marriage. Were Karev's arms not wrapped around her, she would have surely fallen to the ground from her grief. Her wife cheated. Her wife cheated. George cheated. Erica left. Everyone she loves abandons her. As if to mirror her mother's grief, Sofia began to cry in the bedroom.

"God Karev…" she gasped for air, trying to form the words as the sobs continued to wrack her body, "wh-what…what do you think I should do?"

Alex shushed her and gently stroked her back. "I don't know Callie. All I know is that Arizona was in a lot of pain, and obviously feeling a lot lower than any of us had thought. I'm sorry for what she did to you, but I feel sorry for her too."

Her wife felt low, and she deceived everyone. And then she drowned her pain away, first in the arms of another woman, then in the haze of opiates. How could this happen? What was she thinking? Where did they go wrong? These were the same questions she had had all night, and there was no telling when she would get a satisfactory answer for any of them. Across the hall, Sofia's cries grew ever louder.

Callie pulled away from Alex. "Come inside. You can bring Arizona in later. I just need a few minutes."

Alex stepped into her apartment and sat on the couch. Callie ran into the bedroom to pull Sofia out of her crib, and rocked her gently to try to soothe the agitated baby. _Your Mami is sad too, baby girl. I'm sad too. _She passed Sofia off to Alex. "Make her go back to sleep. Please."

As Alex tried to coo and rock Sofia back to sleep, Callie stepped into the bedroom once again, this time with an eerie sense of dread. In the middle of the room was their bed, the bed she had shared with Arizona for so many years. The bed where they had become so intimate, learning and knowing and relearning and re-knowing everything about each other—every curve, every crevice, every whisper, every thought, every breath, every hope, every dream, every insecurity. This is where she had fallen in love. She couldn't bear to look at that bed for much longer. She grabbed a duffel bag from the closet and hurriedly filled them with clothes.

By the time she emerged with the duffel bag of personal effects and Sophia's baby bag, Alex had seemingly gotten Sophia back to her slumber. For a moment, Callie thought of Mark. She thought of how much she missed him, and how he held Sofia, just like Alex did, to soothe her to sleep. She remembered Mark singing softly to their daughter, carrying her around everywhere in the apartment, and nowhere at all. Just from the way he held Sofia she could tell how loving he was of their baby, how protective. He would shield her from all the hurt and pain that he possibly could. That's what Callie would have to do too. She would have to protect Sofia. She's all she has left.

Callie cleared her throat to break herself out of her reverie, and to get Alex's attention. "Help me load these things to my car, Karev."

Alex got up with Sofia still in his arms, and followed Callie to her car. After he set the sleeping baby in the car seat, he turned to Callie.

"What are you going to do?"

"I don't know, but I can't stay here."

"Can't you just stay at Mark's?"

"No…it makes me too sad. I miss him too much. And given everything that's happened tonight, I can't handle any more sad thoughts."

"So where will you go?"

"Probably a hotel for a few nights. Afterward, I don't know. I need to figure out what I want to do."

"Call me if you need anything, Callie"

Callie smiled. She needed these words of kindness on a night like tonight. "I will, Karev. Thank you."

Alex nodded and turned away to head back to his car, but he turned back to give her a hug.

"And Karev?"

"Yeah."

"Please don't tell anyone about what Arizona did."

"Ok. I won't."

Callie parted with Alex and got into the driver's seat of her car. She always liked Karev. Great doctor; could've been a great orthopedic surgeon, under her guidance. Turned out he was a decent person too. She put her keys in the ignition and started the engine. In her rearview mirror, she could see her angel, her baby, her spitting image, slumbering in the back seat. She would protect Sofia, no matter what.


End file.
